


Darkness Round the Sun

by Reccea



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Angst, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-31
Updated: 2009-12-31
Packaged: 2017-10-05 12:55:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/41950
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Reccea/pseuds/Reccea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The last time, two universes were in his way and the words were left there in his mouth.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Darkness Round the Sun

The last time, he put the Tardis in orbit around a supernova. The last time he was a hologram by the ocean, projected through the void for once last chance to look on her. The last time, he had the words, right there, willing to say them, wanting to say them. The last time, two universes were in his way and the words were left there in his mouth. He only said her name.

The last time he spent two years trying to burn the want of her out of his blood. He went to 1969, he went to New New York, he met Shakespeare and saw the moon landing (twice). He met a girl who gave him a file folder of a how to list on how she'd saved his life before she'd actually saved it.

He fought more Daleks and one Time Lord. He'd fought alongside a fixed point in the universe and he'd unmasked the Face of Boe. He'd been old, he'd been human, he'd been speechless.

And still he yearned for her.

This time, he steps out of the Tardis onto the shore of Bad Wolf Bay. He digs his converse into the wet sand, leaving footprints beside hers. He has the words but he does not say them. She is right here and he cannot, will not reach for her.

He has family spread out across the stars. People he will never meet (again) have cried out his name in the darkness. He has saved the universe too many times to count- not that he ever has bothered to keep track.

He is the last of his kind.

Or he will be again, when he tracks sand into the Tardis and leaves Rose with the man he can't be. He doesn't really know how to say it in a way she will believe it. But he knows this to be true. If she stays with him, no good will come of it. There will be no happy ending, no forever, no meant to be. There would be loneliness and despair and there would be beauty and joy and yes it would be a life, it would be a glorious one while it lasted. But it wouldn't last long. It never does, no matter how desperately he wants it to.

Donna is standing next to him, a mirror to the man he is about to leave behind with Rose and if anyone is proof that it cannot end well, then it is her. At least Rose will be still Rose when he closes the void. At least she will take what she has learned and be better for it.

And at least he can be human enough to let someone take his place, to let this doppleganger walk through life with Rose's hand in his. At least he can give her that.

She told him once, as they flew a ship meant for six, that she'd learned how to live a better life from him. She'd learned there was more out there than a dead end job and an alarm clock.

He wants to tell her that he learned just as much from her. That everything approaching human in his Time Lord body is learned, acquired. He is the Doctor but she healed _him_.

He wants to say these things. He wants to tell her how desperately how much he loves her. How he would go back to the end of the universe for her gladly.

But he can't. His words, for once, have left him.

So he shows her instead. He closes the tardis door, walks to the console, charts the void.

He knows someday she'll understand.


End file.
